Pep Guardiola says it’s important for Manchester City to suffer … and still win

I think the performance was good today. I think the players left everything on the grass. They’ve shown passion, desire, they’ve shown emotion as well. Of course we were a little bit unlucky because we conceded the penalty so soon after half-time, but you have to have the tight situations in your favour against a team like Man City. Performance good, result not so good. But we cannot expect a result, what we can expect is that we give everything and we perform. We’ve done this.

I think the referee has done his job. I think it was a fair game. Nothing where I have something to complain. Some decisions from our point of view are maybe not right. The referee said that I should calm down, but to be honest I was quite calm. There were no big decisions which were wrong today, maybe some small ones. This can always happen, so I think the referee has done his job.

I think we’ve shown a good defence shape, a good mindset, we looked solid, we looked very focused and concentrated over the majority of the time. Unfortunately not every single second, and a team like Manchester City is able to punish you if you don’t focus for every single second.

A couple of City players have done some talking. First, Vincent Kompany:

Today was what epitomises the Premier league. it’s a bit colder, it’s a bit harder to move the ball, and they defended well. They were strong in front and they had a gameplan. Today I feel the team deserved the win because we kept at it. You don’t ever go into the game thinking it’s not a big three points, but this one’s even bigger because we were 1-0 down and we ran out of options at some points. We were creating chances and then when they went 1-0 up it became a different game.

And Raheem Sterling:

We came in at half-time really disappointed. For myself and everyone in the dressing-room, we thought we could get something out of the game and that’s exactly what we’ve done. [For the penalty] I thought I was clear through on goal and felt the tug, and it was a clear penalty. I thought the one just before that was even more clear of a foul.

That was a terrific football match. City won by a flukey goal and a penalty to a flukey goal, but Huddersfield’s discipline and determination – at least until the final 15 minutes – was excellent, and made life extremely hard for the champions-elect. It’s hard to say that any individual City player was poor – Silva was below his best but far from terrible, and Aguero was a bit peripheral – but they were simply unable to flourish as a unit. That they still came out of that game with three points says much for their mettle.